4/5 Enjoyable as an overblown
  by Brian W. Glenn (Atlanta)
Some time has passed since Rambo was brought in from the edge by Col Trautman and we find him doing his jail sentence in a labour camp. Trautman comes to Rambo with the offer of a mission which, if successful, could bring him a pardon to go back into Vietnam for Marshall Murdock and get evidence of American POW's still being held there. When the parachute drop goes wrong Rambo finds himself behind enemy lines, betrayed by his own people but yet determined to get the POWs out. Things get worse when he finds the Russians are involved as well. When the opening credits tell you that the film was written by Stallone and James Cameron you can't really claim that you weren't warned that the story may not be that great (although both men have some good stuff under their belts as well). True to expectations the story is pretty poor and is essentially just a series of shootouts against baddies that are really pantomime villains. Although the original Rambo didn't manage to be as interesting and insightful as it could have been, it feels like a really intelligent movie when viewed next to this movie and having Rambo deliver a pro-vet rant in the final few minutes is not any compensation and it is about as subtle as a brick. However this is not a problem if you just came to the movie looking for Rambo to shoot 'them' in big action scenes cause he does. Sadly this 'Commando' style action has dated badly and modern audiences generally require more intelligent action (comparatively anyway); I no longer just accept the one-man against the world thing as an acceptable scenario. It still works if all you want to see if things explode and tonnes of anonymous enemies get killed however it is hard not to find it all more amusing than exciting. I thought the direction in the First Blood was OK but here George P Comatose pretty much lives up to his name and just carves out an unremarkable action movie. It's all very basic and the characters are just big cardboard cut outs in stereotypical mode hero, baddie, POW, politician etc, I didn't really care about any of them, which is a shame when you think of the aims of the original story. Stallone is pumped up and daft at least in the first film he was more than a character but here, aside from a rant, he is just a big action man nothing more. Berkoff is a terrible ham and he is an awful bad guy here put him in a dress and he would be a pantomime dame. Napier, Wood and Crenna are all recognisable faces and add that if nothing else. Overall this is a big dumb action movie in the style of the 80's (one man against an army) and if that's all you want then that's what you get and you'll enjoy it. However it is hard to ignore the fact that the story is poor, the action overblown, the performances weak or hammy and the 'message' reduced to a single 60 second rant by Stallone, which is obvious and crude. I enjoyed it as a stupid action movie but the sheer volume of weaknesses in this film makes it difficult to call it anything other than silly fun if you're in the mood.

3/5 Action-wise, it was what I expected from First Blood
  by Andariel Halo (Phenomynouss@hotmail.com is my real e-mail)
My initial complaint about First Blood was that with all the buzz and word "classic" thrown about about it, I expected innovative, genre-defining violence hardly seen at the time. I did not receive that.

Just a few years later, with "First Blood II", the first movie to bear the "Rambo" tag, I get exactly the sort of "genre-defining violence" I had expected from the first movie.

It still pales in comparison to modern bloodfests, but it's still something I haven't seen in many pre-80s movies, and even bloodier than most PG13 action movies today.

From a Saga point of view, this installation was necessary to establish Rambo's skills, particularly with a bow and with pain tolerance. From a story point of view, it was cheeseballs. Majorly cheeseballs.

The plot involves Rambo being taken out of prison for his crimes in the first movie, and sent to Vietnam for a redemptive act in which he must free a prisoner of war or a few. For a veteran of old action films, the casting of Stacey Keach probably should have made it obvious that the commander in charge would eventually become the bad guy, but it took me a few scenes before realizing that.

So Stacey Keach's character betrays Rambo for a reason which is highly logical and rational, and yet unlike most trashy action movies, the motives and justifications for it, despite being very mature and thoughtful, are nevertheless wrong and not worth abandoning Rambo and a prisoner of war or two.

The story itself does feel like a cheeseball re-playing of the Vietnam war, with "America" winning in the form of the basic soldier, winning out against both communist enemies, and their own leaders who sent them to a pointless war to begin with.


The parting words of Rambo at the end are very corny in the context of the plot, but I think out of context from this plot, they create yet another layer of profoundity and beauty to this insanely complex character. It probably should have been included in "First Blood", but it is certainly not out of place here.

"The war and all this may be wrong, but, dammit don't hate your country for it."
"Hey... I'd die for it."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want... what they want. And every other guy that came over here and gave everything he had and spilled his guts wants. For our country to love us, as much as we love it. That is what I want."



EDIT: I don't think that guy was played by Stacey Keach, actually.

1/5 Reagan-era revenge fantasy
  by David Bonesteel (Fresno, CA United States)
Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is emancipated by Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna) from the prison camp where he is serving time and sent back to Nam to gather evidence of the existence of POWs. Problem is, the "government," as embodied by a square-jawed tool named Marshall Murdock (Charles Napier), doesn't want anyone to be found.

This stunningly illogical piece of garbage trots out all the reliable boogeymen of Cold War Reagan-era America: evil Russians, loathsome Asians, and two-faced bureaucrats (government is the problem). I'm not sure that Rambo's mission even makes any sense except perhaps as a piece of intra-governmental propaganda since a convicted criminal's failure to find evidence of abandoned MIAs could hardly be expected to be persuasive to the general public. Rambo's enemies conveniently show up where needed so that they can fall into his clutches, and the two Russians who torture Rambo, a lieutenant colonel (Steven Berkoff) and his sadistic henchman (Voyo Goric), also turn out to be the two helicopter pilots that he faces in a dogfight later. The filmmakers have loads of fun blowing up a Vietnamese village, which would no doubt result in the deaths of numerous peasants, thereby demonstrating why the natives might not be so appreciative of our efforts to "liberate" them.


5/5 Mixed Reviews
  by MARCUSHELBLINZ (St. Louis, MO USA)
I just want to say, I have no mixed reviews for this movie
I have seen rambo 1-3 and I would have to say this one is my favorite. The first one built up to part 2. And the third one had more stealth, but this one was just perfect. It had almost over 25 explosions in one scene alone and had him hide in the bushes and get people that way (as in the first) and I think that's just awesome the way he does it. This movie had one of my favorite scenes in movie history. After he was being tortured and was forced to talk to his command station, all hell breaks loose.

4/5 Movie: 3.5/5 Picture Quality: 3.25~4.5/5 Sound Quality: 3.25/5 Extras: 2.5/5
  by LGANS316 (Tokyo Japan)
Version: U.S.A / Lionsgate / Region Free
VC-1 BD-25 1080p / 23.976fps / Advanced Profile 3
Running time: 1:35:58 (h:m:s)
Movie size: 21,325,658,112 bytes
Disc size: 24,359,135,536 bytes
Average video bit rate: 21.97 Mbps

DTS-HD Master Audio English 4233 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 4233kbps (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 1536kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 192kbps

Subtitles: English / Spanish
Number of chapters: 16

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Version: U.K / Optimum / Region A / B
VC-1 BD-25 1080p / 23.976fps / Advanced Profile 3
Running time: 1:35:55 (h:m:s)
Movie size: 20,505,513,984 bytes
Disc size: 23,373,405,514 bytes
Average video bit rate: 17.01 Mbps

DTS-HD Master Audio English 2111 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 2111kbps (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1536kbps)
DTS-HD Audio French 2046 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 2046kbps (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1536kbps)
DTS-HD Audio German 2046 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 2046kbps (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1536kbps)
DTS Audio Portuguese 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1536kbps
DTS Audio Spanish 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1536kbps

Subtitles: English / Danish / Dutch / Finnish / French / German / Norwegian / Portuguese / Spanish / Swedish
Number of chapters: 12

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Version: E.U / Studio Canal HD DVD
VC-1 HD-30
Running time: 1:35:50 (h:m:s)
Movie size: 16,294,049,792 bytes
Disc size: 17,071,625,621 bytes
Average video bit rate: 17.03 Mbps
DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1